We will discuss two different questions in this post:
1) How to organize the time we devote to work?
2) How not to lose your temper when not everything is going as we expected?
1) How to organize the time we devote to work?
At the end of a choir lesson, I approached the teacher and asked her for tips to work effectively on the material she had given us as homework. She told me, among other things: "Work as hard as you can at your own pace. When you feel tired and no longer receptive, do not be ashamed to take a break. It is better to work efficiently for 45 minutes, rest for a quarter of an hour, and work hard again than to be in the state of maybe working, maybe dreaming, and maybe sleeping.
I followed her advice, and indeed it works! I absorbed quite a lot of material and did not feel the time pass. I adapted the method to my anxious nature: each time I set my alarm clock for the next three-quarters of an hour. So, if I'm working on something with ardor and hear the ringing, then no problem: three-quarters of an hour has passed, I enjoyed, and then - I can decide whether to continue working or take a break. On the other hand, if I feel tired because this job was boring to me, I am not worried during my work because I know that the savior ring will come.
On the other hand, I have noticed that too much rest is no less tiring than too much work.
2) How do you not lose your temper when not everything is going as we expected?
You probably know the following phenomenon: You are working on a particular task and nothing is going as you expected! Then, you lose your temper: get upset, and in the end, abandon the task, or perform it several times the time you are used to doing it, and of much lower quality. You are simply "not yourself", and envious of people who keep calm in such situations.
I have been like this too many times. When I discovered that anxiety was the source of the problem, I also discovered the cure for the problem.
Example:
I was working with OUTLOOK (MICROSOFT's email management software), and at one point, I wanted to add a new contact. I searched the entire menu and sub-menus and found no such item. I got stressed.
The following is the typical behavior I had in such cases:
- I would repeatedly try to check in the places that I had already checked to see if a miracle had happened and the item that I was looking for had now appeared.
- Since I was not successful, I would say a few juicy curses in French, as if it would help ...
Now on the other hand, I usually:
- Immediately recognize that I have an issue with anxiety, stress, whatever you call it.
- Acknowledging and admitting to myself that this poor software may not be to blame for anything, but that I got anxious is half the solution. Because I know that anxiety, in this case, is a healthy phenomenon since it signals to me that I have a completely normal problem. This recognition immediately stops the anxiety, and puts me in a good mood and ready to fight the problem. (In this context, I also recommend reading the post "How to deal with anxiety?)
I then have such a conversation with myself, for example:
"Good Yossi, so no panic! Let's take control of the situation instead of letting the situation take over us! In the worst-case, if I cannot, I will call the technician! What am I looking for already? Create a new contact? Is it on the menu? No! Maybe a bug in the software?! "So, what do you do in that case? One option is to close the software and turn it back on. But before that, let's try something else: try to see what's written in Help."
Then I open it, and a window opens: What do you want to do?
I write: Open a new contact!
Press Enter,
And immediately, the software takes me where I want to go.
The problem was solved!
In conclusion:
In this post, we dealt with the question: "How to work efficiently?"
We addressed this question from two aspects:
1) How to organize the time we devote to work?
We have seen that my recommendation is to work for short periods of time and take breaks.
2) How do you not lose your temper when not everything is going as we expected?
We have seen that the cause of loss of mind is anxiety and that recognizing the cause helps solve the problem.
What do you think?
- Do you usually take breaks when you work?
- How do you cope when things do not go as you expected?
- What helps you work efficiently?
I would love to hear examples from your personal experience.
You can write below in the comments.